The path to peace in the Middle East is as hard as ever

It's difficult to remember now, but it was only a fortnight ago that George Bush and Tony Blair met in Belfast to declare the Irish peace process as the exemplar for peace in the Middle East.

So here we are a little over two weeks later with Blair wearily trying to turn the heat on the IRA to permit a return to devolved democracy in the Belfast, and the Palestinians only just appointing a new Prime Minister to enable to publication of the "road-map to peace in the Middle East.

The problem, as so often in attempts to settle the murderous disputes that spatter the globe from East Timor to the Basque country, is in the politics of peacemaking. To achieve a breakthrough you need the impetus from above. But then, as in Northern Ireland, you need the impetus from below to keep it going.

If that is true of Northern Ireland, where there has been peace for five years, how much more difficult are the prospects in the Middle East, where the average weekly death rate is about a dozen civilians on either side and shows no sign of abating.

The political will is there from the outside. You can argue whether Bush's conversion to the need for a US-led initiative will ever come to anything when push Israel comes to shove Ariel Sharon. But that Bush wants a breakthrough should not be doubted. If nothing else, the US invasion of Iraq makes no sense unless it leads to a more secure region.

As for Blair, publication of the road-map produced by the quartet of the US, UN, EU and Russia has become the measure of his influence over Bush and the test of his future intentions with his party.

But wishing it doesn't make it so. Out there on the ground, where the killing is going on, there seems to be neither hope nor belief in a peace settlement, let alone any enthusiasm for the road-map. Israeli public opinion, on the latest polls, has no belief in the sincerity of the Palestinian leadership, new or old. But then, neither do the Palestinians have any faith in the Israeli government. As far as most Palestinians are concerned, America and Israeli are in an unholy alliance to keep them in a state of subjection and the road-map is just one more exercise in the road to subjugation.

At this stage, it has to be said, they have reason to fear the worst. The road-map, which sets out a series of steps towards a two-state solution, is a neat and no doubt sincere effort by outside diplomats to break the logjam. It tries to avoid past mistakes by proposing that the initial phase of disengagement be done in parallel, with the Palestinian side ending violence while the Israelis withdraw from areas occupied since the year 2000, so that the process cannot be held hostage by extremists wrecking the peace.

Once normalisation is then achieved, the parties can move on to a second phase, when the Arab world would support the process by recognising Israel and the Palestinians would elect a government, and the third phase, bringing about final negotiations and a two-state solution, would be achieved.

The weakness is that almost all the major concessions are on the Palestinian and Arab side. It is they who are supposed to stop all violence, make peace with Israel, cease funding "terrorists" or "freedom fighters" (depending on your view) and produce a new Palestinian Authority acceptable to Israel and the US. Israel is only required to stop the military incursions it has been engaged in since the second intifada broke out nearly three years ago. It is only in the final phase that it has to withdraw from the occupied territories and dismantle the main settlements, and even then with no firm promise that it will be to the pre-1967 borders.

Washington can certainly put the pressure on the two sides to accept the road-map, at least in its first phase. Given its victory in Iraq, it can now put the squeeze on the Arab states, and particularly Syria (which Colin Powell is due to visit within the next few weeks). Having won in Iraq, Washington is also in a position to arm-twist Israel, with the promise of regional security if Israel makes some concessions.

But then Sharon, like it or not, is the head of a coalition committed to security at all costs, a security it believes can only be achieved by confronting and defeating the Palestinians. And that is a view shared by most in a US administration dominated by a neo-conservative group that believes that Israel and America's security interests are one and the same.

Getting the parties to sign up to the road-map in theory is the easy bit. But the room for unravelling in a situation where there is not even the beginnings of trust between the parties is endless. Palestine and Israel are led by two old men unable to break out of the past. The appointment of the 67-year-old Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian Prime Minister merely adds another old man, with all the baggage of the past, into an equation soured by the Palestinians' sense that they have been forced into this at the behest of Israel and America. Far from seeing the road-map as a pathway to a new, fairer future, it will seem an endless succession of humiliations for a people too weak to determine their own future and too badly led to take the diplomatic initiative.

One can hope that it proves better than this and that, as in Northern Ireland, the profound desire of most ordinary people forces the men of violence to turn to peace. But then, look how long it has taken to get a cessation of hostilities in Ulster and how far it has still to go before there is real peace and democracy there.

a.hamilton@independent.co.uk